The Art & Struggle of Practicing Vulnerability

I’ve recently started reading Brene Brown’s “Rising Strong”. I loved her “Daring Greatly” research, about being gutsy enough to dare to be great, and when I saw her speak at the Silicon Valley Conference for Women a couple years ago, I felt something shift in my mind.

That maybe I could turn my dreams into a reality… if I just allowed myself to follow my dream.

But what about all the things that could go wrong? What about paying my loans? What would people think about me?

Enter, vulnerability.

In order to take a leap, you have to allow yourself to be vulnerable. You’re willing to put yourself out there, to a world that owes you absolutely nothing. You’re going to fall. You’re going to fail.

And as Brown says in the introduction of her book, the magic happens when you start to get up again.

I was a clumsy kid (and still am as an adult). For as many times as I fell, twisted something, broke a bone or bumped into the side of the couch, you would have thought that I would be become more graceful in my falls. If anything, I feel like my falls have become louder, more painful, and harder to recover from.

Why? As an adult, shame plays a bigger role in my life than it did as a kid.

If you are falling gracefully, you aren’t aiming high enough.

As I’m reading this book, I can feel a shift again – mainly in my relationships. I explained some of Brene’s book to my husband, and both of us promised to try to be more open about what we are feeling. Instead of getting into a fight because the pasta was cooked too long, we are working to articulate to each other that “it was a long day, and XYZ”. To really get to the heart of the matter.

To be truly vulnerable with each other. To peel back the layers of work life, life life, history and the baggage that we all carry, to really truly know and respect each other.

Is it pretty? No. Is it painful? Just as any sort of growing pains.

But is it worth it? Absolutely.

I’m taking this practice of vulnerability to my entire life. Learning to ask for what I want, and taking the fall, or enjoying the high. The good stuff happens outside your comfort zone, and pushing that comfort zone away and living in that area of vulnerability and valuable DIScomfort is where we will find out our true strength.

Want to join me in reading this book? Sign up for my email list, and we can read it together. Have a book you think I should read next? Shoot me a note!

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About Me

The best things in life get you sweaty.

I’m a Boston-based fitness instructor, who loves writing, sharing and teaching others how to find the strength that they already have.

I’ll be posting here about a little bit of everything – workouts, classes, best active places to go for a family outing, body positivity and some real life ups and downs. Thanks for joining me and I hope you enjoy!